Measuring The Advantages and Drawbacks of 30 and 15 Year Fixed Mortgage Rates
The monthly repayments for 30 year or 15 year fixed mortgage rates are just one important consideration for many people who are looking to buy a home. Buying a home later in life means that many people want to have the mortgage paid off early. Of course, there are many things to consider before agreeing to anything. Home buyers looking into this need to be assured their monthly payments will not increase.
If you are offered a deal that appears to be too good to be true than it probably is. Loans agreed with a 15 year fixed mortgage keep the same interest rate throughout the entire life of the agreement. For those individuals that do not like hidden surprises, this is always a benefit. My wife and I looked into the loans available with 15 year fixed mortgage rates when we were searching for a home for sale.
Having a realistic, sustainable monthly payment on our mortgage was important even though we wanted to pay off our debt as soon as possible. Considering longer term fixed rate mortgages was one option if we could not afford a 15 year plan. Still, having a mortgage close to retirement was not what we were looking for, so we decided to try for a loan with a 15 year fixed mortgage. Too much pressure was placed on the early repayment of the mortgage loan.
Eventually we decided on a 30 year loan after looking at all the other possibilities. Reaching the decision we did was the only one that made sense. It was easier reaching this conclusion when I learnt my wife was expecting a baby. Her regular monthly income would become unreliable because she wanted to be at home raising our child. The downside to the 15 year fixed mortgage rate was the higher monthly repayment. We just decided we would probably get into trouble if we took this route. The monthly payments on a 30 year loan were quite a bit lower.
Being able to make additional lump sum payments during the year means the outstanding loan reduces faster. Those few extra payments also help reduce the number of years you have to pay the loan over. This is well worth it in the long term but it does require some discipline. Our desire for a 15 year fixed rate mortgage was second place to our more immediate needs. Anyway, everything worked out fine despite our hesitancy.
Tags: 15 year fixed mortgage rate, 15 year fixed mortgage rates, Mortgage Rate
